Judicial Waiver Decisions in Two Southern States: A Study of Judicial Perceptions

Abstract

In 2007, nearly fourteen thousand juveniles were waived to the adult criminal court. Sending juveniles to the adult criminal justice system continues to be a significant mechanism for the increase in accountability; adult time for adult crime. Numerous studies have examined the factors that increase the juvenile’s likelihood of being waived. This process generally involves examining case files of juvenile offenders already waived to the adult criminal court. These types of studies obtain information on juvenile offenders’ age, race, gender, type of crime committed, prior criminal history, and family structure. Although this information is important these types of studies do not look at how characteristics of juvenile court judges affect their perceptions of the factors they consider in their waiver decisions. This study sought to examine the relationship between individual characteristics of juvenile court judges; race, age, gender, political party affiliation, tenure on the bench, way in which the judge acquired his/her position, previous position, and jurisdiction, and their perceptions regarding judicial waiver. The results indicate that jurisdiction was a significant predictor variable of juvenile court judges’ perceptions regarding judicial waiver. Juvenile court judges in suburban jurisdictions were less likely than juvenile court judges in urban and rural jurisdictions to believe transferring juveniles to the adult criminal justice system deterred crime. In addition, although not statistically significant, gender and race did show some interesting results. Suggestions for future research are offered. The researchers acknowledges that there are differences in the definitions for the words transfer and waiver; however, to reduce confusion and for the purposes of this study, the word waiver will be used for both.